Marked for Death

Herenicus

Here is Sunday's edition of Marked for Death

Herenicus v. @Telvantes : https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/3c82f93d
Herenicus v. @Saibel : https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/d4d7c802
@Saibel v. Herenicus : https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/0e65b0d7
Herenicus v. @Herose : https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/7bb89a9d
Herenicus v. @Elazar : https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/f0a03f69
Herenicus v. @Orzaansyn : https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/565f22ab
@Herose v. Herenicus : https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/da56bef9
@Cresil v. Herenicus : https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/a165841e
@Mazzington v. Herenicus : https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/fb09b4c1
@Atalkez v. Herenicus : https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/1f6a3061

Obviously a lot of improvements to be made. The low-hanging fruit that I have noticed include: 

(1) Need better EQ and BAL alerts
(2) Must avoid spamming aliases hoping for EQ or BAL
(3) Need better parry/venom strategies (or any parry/venom strategy in some cases)

Thanks in advance for advice and suggestions. If other people participating in Marked for Death want to post their experiences or logs in this thread, be my guest. 

Kadin

I would suggest using basic highlighting for balance and eq. At least for me it works and doesn't spam me like a huge echo. For the spamming in search of balance/eq I highly recommend server side aliases. I'm not going to pretend I know all to much about parry strategies and allow someone more knowledgable to answer that. 

Dartega

Not sure why you would stop spamming aliases or need eq/bal alerts. Chasing balance is usually preferred, especially for an apostate I would say.
Just turn off show text sent to mud in settings and highlight your attacks going through.

Mishgul

If I'm using daegger hunt, I would have daemonite out for hindering them and giving you the chance to knock them off balance if you are close to locking them, preventing escape or shielding. If i'm using nightmare, i'd keep the daegger on the side for shadowstriking when you have 3 or more afflictions to hinder them. 

Also removing deafness with sensitivity early and using bloodworms can seriously disrupt their offense, even without confusion. Couldn't find sensitivity with the find function so not sure you used it in your fight with Herose that he won.

I'm not sure how long the fight was because no timestamps, but demon stain wears off after 90 -120 seconds so you have to be aware of that if you are going for locks and don't want bloodroot to cure slickness if he gets his priorities wrong at a critical point when you are close to locking him.

Mishgul

I try to be as spammy as possible, to try and keep myself on edge. If i make myself too comfortable, I felt like I was more likely to make mistakes, so I never tried to cut down on spam. For the most part, it worked when I was trying to win fights. If i let myself get too comfortable I always ended up dying to something stupid.

Jeslyn

All of those cool things apostates have... makes me jealous. My question is, how do you get svo to tell you what your victim is afflicted with? I usually have to diagnose to see what landed on them.

Jinsun

Can't agree more with @Dartega‌  it's time to go to your settings and remove show the text I sent. You may also consider in the future putting your aff tracker to the side in a GUI. That's pretty fancy pants but cuts back on spam 

Antonius

A couple of things defensively against Elazar:

You weren't using rebounding. No limb damage from your side offensively, so there's no downside to using it. You won anyway, but there's no reason to make it harder on yourself than it needs to be.

This part:

You may apply another salve or balm to yourself.
4750h, 4782m, 21685e, 12731w cxkdb[ra1 rl1 ll1 pr]-(apply renewal to arms)fly
You take out some balm and quickly rub it on your arms.
The bones in your right arm mend. (1.284s)
4750h, 4782m, 21685e, 12731w cxkdb[rl1 ll1 pr]-fly
fly
fly
fly
fly
You have recovered equilibrium. (8.717s)
4750h, 4782m, 21685e, 12731w cexkdb[rl1 ll1 pr]-(restore)
You must be standing first.
4750h, 4782m, 21685e, 12731w cexkdb[rl1 ll1 pr]-
You must be standing first.
4750h, 4782m, 21685e, 12731w cexkdb[rl1 ll1 pr]-
Energy wreathes itself about your body to heal your limbs. (i)
The bones in your left leg mend.
The bones in your right leg mend.
4750h, 4582m, 21685e, 12691w cxkdb[rl1 ll1 pr]-(-200m, 3.7%) fly
You may apply another salve or balm to yourself.
4750h, 4582m, 21685e, 12691w cxkdb[rl1 ll1 pr]-(apply renewal to legs)
You take out some balm and quickly rub it on your legs.
You messily spread the balm over your body, to no effect. (4.796s) (4.18s)
4750h, 4582m, 21685e, 12691w cxkdb[pr]-fly
Saibel projects a net of light about herself and you watch as her image becomes faded and ghostly.
4750h, 4582m, 21685e, 12691w cxkdb[pr]-fly
fly
Elazar takes a drink from a stygian vial.
4750h, 4567m, 21685e, 12691w cxkdb[pr]-(-15m, 0.3%) fly
fly
fly
You may apply another salve or balm to yourself.
4750h, 4567m, 21685e, 12709w cxkdb[pr]-
Elazar takes a long drag off his pipe.
4750h, 4567m, 21685e, 12709w cxkdb[pr]-fly
fly
fly
Lightning-quick, Elazar jabs you with an ornate steel rapier.
You watch, in horror, as your left arm shrivels up and becomes useless.
Elazar viciously jabs an ornate steel rapier into you.
You stumble as your left leg shrivels into a useless appendage.
4548h, 4836m, 21685e, 12709w cxkdb[ll1 pr]-

No reason to restore if all you have is two broken legs and prone; it's part of the Svo defaults intended to "stand up faster", but in that situation (and basically every other one I've ever seen) it actually means you stand a lot slower than you could have done. You had enough time for two mending/renewal applications to legs, then possibly could have stood up, before his next doubleslash.

Jinsun

Leave restore off SVO default and manual restore in emergencies

Addama

Yeah, restore is something that a lot of people can exploit if you have it set to trigger.  F.ex, if I notice an enemy is restoring liberally, I'll switch from curare/aconite or curare/prefarar to epteth/epseth.  In effect I can force them off eq for most of the fight with minimal effort.

That's how I beat Wayde, anyway, but it's not as though that's one of my crowning achievements.

Atalkez

My link is broken! 

Herenicus

Going through and marking every reply as insightful seems like poor forum etiquette, but that's how progress feels. Thank you. 

Saibel

You've been a busy bee, Herenicus!

Sarapis

Terra

I don't have the time to go through all of the logs in detail, but here are a few pointers.

1) You need to spam more, not less. Anytime you look through a log and see yourself recover balance, your opponent eat an herb, and then your deadeye come after the herb eat, you're attacking too slow.

2) You don't really want to do stupidity when you're daegger hunting, since it a) wastes time and b) may actually force them to shield, which you don't want. Stick impatience, asthma, weariness, and then paralyse/anorexia. If they touch tree pre-lock, you can just stick impatience and asthma and end with anorexia/weariness, and give paralysis next after the lock is already complete.

3) You also don't need to hammer every time your opponent shields. In the Telvantes log, there was a point where he had gecko already and asthma and he shielded, and you hammered, when you could have just finished the lock. Deadeyes goes through shield. The only thing you can't deliver through shield is gecko, so if that's already stuck, let them shield all they want.

So proud of you for all the battle, though, Herenicus!

Dartega

Probably also useful to note when you see sileris falling off randomly in a fight (think I saw this in your first link). This means your nightmare just hit them with gecko and you can jump on that.

Also, using the serverside queue for deadeyes makes a pretty noticeable difference in speed.

Taraza

One that that I generally recommend in terms of apostates as well as if you have the "Mind Warden" trait contemplate after -each- deadeye. There's no reason not to. Particularly since you never know when you can sneak in a catharsis in a fight. Apostates have a wide variety of options and it's great. 

Definitely agree with staring stupidity while hunting, most of the time as well when a person has stupidity half the time it forces them to shield. This can actually stop your -own- momentum. 

Overall, great job and definitely keep it up  

Vaehl

There's a lot of people that can provide a bunch of healthy insight into Apostate.

Thing is, there's also a lot of misinformation out there too. Feel free to PM me and use msgs etc, I'm up for helping especially after seeing you spar so much.

Jovolo

Things already mentioned:

The protective coating covering the skin of Saibel sloughs off. - This is an indication that they just gained slickness. If they have sileris on keepup (you could check this at the start of a fight just by doing a daegger puncture with gecko to strip sileris and see if they apply quicksilver/sileris), then it's an excellent way to track whether Hellsight from the Nightmare gave slickness or not.  

You have recovered balance on all limbs./You have recovered equilibrium. You'll probably want to highlight these in some way. I have balance as gray foreground and blue background, equilibrium as gray foreground and red background. 

Strategy:

Deadeyes strategies will vary depending on how your opponent cures. One thing I would encourage you to do is exactly what you're doing already - log every fight you have. Read it back over, and see how your opponents respond with cures depending on what afflictions they have (curing priorities). Here are a few examples.

If someone has paralysis, asthma and impatience, they have three different things to cure and only one herb balance to do it. Most people will eat bloodroot to cure paralysis for the tree tattoo and to continue attacking. You will have to account for people that cure differently though, because you will encounter them eventually. If someone cures paralysis first, then your biggest issue is the tree tattoo. There are two ways to get around this - one, let them use it and then go for a lock in the fifteen second window that they are now off tree balance. Two, stick more afflictions than are necessary for the lock (typical example of a lock would be paralysis, asthma, impatience, slickness, anorexia, weariness). Examples: Vomiting, Sensitivity, Clumsiness, all focusables not including Weariness, and so on. These are called 'Buffer afflictions'. This is to increase the chance that tree cures something not vital to the lock, allowing you to finish the lock with paralyse/plague and go for the kill. You can use the two different counter methods together, sticking more afflictions than are necessary for the lock and then in the case that tree does cure something vital to the lock, just relocking them in the 15s window you now opened for yourself. This is much easier with hellsight from nightmare, as hellsight not only gives slickness, but also gives a multitude of buffer affs passively that won't be cured if your target has impatience and isn't prioritising it.

Examples of taking advantage of varying herb priorities. 

Paralysis - Use the paralysis priority to stick asthma and impatience, and begin layering buffer affs on top. I would suggest first hitting with afflictions that hinder and that have a different cure type to the second highest priority. Let's say a person cures paralysis>impatience>asthma. I would do paralyse/asthma, paralyse/asthma, paralyse/impatience, paralyse/clumsy (eat bloodroot, eat goldenseal), paralyse/impatience, paralyse/sensitivity, paralyse/sensitivity, paralyse/impatience (eat bloodroot, eat goldenseal). They now have asthma/clumsy/sensitivity/undeaf(for bloodworms). You can do the opposite if they prioritise paralysis>asthma>impatience. Paralyse/impatience, paralyse/impatience, paralyse/asthma, paralyse/stupidity (eat bloodroot, eat kelp), paralyse/confusion, paralyse/asthma, paralyse/sensitivity (to undeaf for bloodworms), paralyse/dizziness (eat bloodroot, eat kelp). They now have impatience/confusion/stupidity/dizziness. Use this method to stick afflictions. 

Hunt - If someone shields as soon as Hunt comes up, remember that you can use it defensively. If you're fighting a momentum class such as Serpent, then they're going to have to hit you for at least a few consecutive doublestabs to have a chance to finish their own strategy. When they shield, it means the execution of their own strategy abruptly stops and you get a breather. You can also play chicken with it if they decide they've had enough of shielding every five seconds and try to beat you while letting you Hunt. If they let you Hunt, then you move onto deadeyes/Hunt strategies. These will vary depending on an opponent's priorities, but stock examples include:

Envenom gecko only. Stick asthma and impatience, let slickness hit, paralyse/anorexia. If they have fitness, then anorexia/weariness. In the first case, they will be locked. In the second, they will possibly tree and have a chance at curing out. Utilise the methods I mentioned above to counter the tree touch.

Envenom both gecko and curare. I would say put the first three as curare, and everything after as gecko. You can use this to more quickly stick buffer afflictions. For example, curare hunt hits - bloodroot - curare hunt hits - bloodroot - clumsy/asthma + curare hunt hits - bloodroot - paralyse/impatience + gecko hunt hits. You only need two deadeyes to get paralyse/impatience/clumsy/asthma/slickness. They can eat goldenseal, in which case you impatience/anorexia, or impatience/stupid, or they can eat bloodroot and you can paralyse/anorexia or anorexia/weariness, or they can eat kelp and you can anorexia/weary or asthma/anorexia! With expert diagnoser, this becomes even stronger.

Puncture - Puncture is a fairly decent way of locking prep-based class if they fight defensively with shield/attack/shield against Hunt. Just stick afflictions according to the method I mentioned before, hit them with asthma on a kelp stack and puncture gecko. If they eat kelp, they get a 25% chance of curing it provided you stuck weariness, 33% if just clumsy/asthma/sensitivity. Then finish the lock with whatever they cured depending on priorities. If they ate kelp before curing para, then you don't need to deadeyes with para. Skip ahead to weariness/anorexia if they can fitness, or anorexia/plague if they can't. If they ate bloodroot, then para/anorexia.

Catharsis - There are multiple ways to go around this. If you notice your opponent prioritises paralysis>impatience>asthma, you can do a large kelp stack with manaleech and deathaura. If you stacked focusables on top of impatience, when they cure it they will begin focusing every 2.5 seconds. This is a frequent passive mana drain of manaleech and focusing. It works much better on low mana targets, because most mana abilities are not % based, whereas Catharsis and sap are. If you contemplate every second or third deadeyes, you can track whether they're sipping health or mana, and how much of an impact on their mana your strategy is having. Adjust accordingly. 

Note: As mentioned, you can contemplate off balance. I would suggest not doing this every deadeyes, though. It's a significant enough drain on mana in fights where you might need to conserve it (think priests, magi, monks), and it will kill you in drawn out fights. It makes arena events that much harder, too. 

I'll read the logs a bit later and might have some more to say in regards to those specifically. 

Jovolo

Terra said:

1) You need to spam more, not less. Anytime you look through a log and see yourself recover balance, your opponent eat an herb, and then your deadeye come after the herb eat, you're attacking too slow.

This is the only thing I disagree with. You're right in most cases, but there are occasions where it's smarter to wait for an opponent to eat something before you deadeyes them again even if you already regained balance. Stacking is a good example. When you deadeyes twice, after the second deadeyes, the only have enough time to eat once - the catch is, they get to eat again almost immediately (like half a second) after the deadeyes. This means they're not paralysed for as long resulting in less hindrance, and they get to 'catch up' with afflictions more quickly. As a rule of thumb, I'd say use the queue or at least spam your attacks close to when you're about to recover balance unless they are also just about to recover herb balance. Better to wait and see what they cure and then continue.

Melodie

This thread is so helpful. I love all of you.

I might actually start practicing 1v1 again, between this thread and @Kuy's wonderful personal help.

Daslin

This is how I did Serpent. I smashed things like I was playing Eddy on Tekken. Admittedly, I knew what things did on my keyboard, compared to eddy's moves (who the shit actually knows his combos?) I've always been a fan of spamming attacks, and it's no less effective as aff class, imo.

Exelethril

Spam is good for saving a few milliseconds of balance if you don't use serverside queueing.

Chiam

Exelethril said:

Spam is good for saving a few milliseconds of balance if you don't use serverside queueing.

or a hundred milliseconds, if you play at 300-400 ping like me.

Jinsun

Daslin said:

This is how I did Serpent. I smashed things like I was playing Eddy on Tekken. Admittedly, I knew what things did on my keyboard, compared to eddy's moves (who the shit actually knows his combos?) I've always been a fan of spamming attacks, and it's no less effective as aff class, imo.

I was actually one of those who learned how to control eddy. Super badass but had horrible weaknesses. I miss tekken tag

Cynlael

Why bother learn to control him, when playing him like a monk, and smashing any button you can works perfectly fine.

Herenicus

Monday's edition of Marked for Death

@Proficy v. Herenicus : https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/f3294be9
@Aegoth v. Herenicus : https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/cf37dd7d
@Gerwulf v. Herenicus : https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/e84c3ea3
@Xinna v. Herenicus : https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/d61b7ba3
@Ayoxele v. Herenicus : https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/c7ab2346

Updates include: (1) Basic highlighting; (2) Turned off showing text sent; (3) Marginally-improved situational awareness; (4) Deafness/sensitivity/bloodworms; (5) Contemplate

To do: (1) Restoration salve 101; (2) Jovolo's advice 

Tuesday's edition of Marked for Death 

@Atalkez v. Herenicus (Part One) : https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/158ff093
@Atalkez v. Herenicus (Part Two) : https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/965bc8bc
@Atalkez v. Herenicus (Part One) : https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/4cbba287
@Atalkez v. Herenicus (Part Two) : https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/1aa8169d

...and maybe you! 

Thanks to everyone for participating. Special mention goes out to @Malifuus (for trying long ago to lure me away from shitty hotkeys), @Nocroth (for evileye and contemplate/catharsis scripts, still free to a good Apostate home), @Ayoxele (for an afternoon of invaluable Q&A), and @Xinna.

Herenicus

Herenicus v. @Florentino https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/c5762445

Seftin

Keep it up @Herenicus, glad to see you getting involvedin combat!

Mizik

Bro, that Damnation log was B-R-U-T-A-L.

Antonius

After reading that log against Gerwulf... Whatever parry strategy you're using in Svo, disable that shit. Parrying the last limb hit is about as effective as not using parry at all; I don't know if he wasn't paying attention or just made some mistakes with what he was targetting, but seemed like he didn't really tweak that that's what you were doing.

You could have avoided the Damnation if you'd applied to cure anorexia rather than the crippled leg, after the second restoration finished. Might be worth learning how to code affliction priority switches in Svo, plenty of people willing to help with that if you need it; if you've got a broken head and anorexia against a Paladin, cure anorexia first. Looks like Gerwulf missed out on a double epteth doubleslash (probably stupidity eating a command?), which allowed you to touch tree - though at that point it was a waste of balance, might have also helped save you if you'd had tree available after hellsight/arc.

EDIT: What's with constantly putting up satiation? Seems like an unnecessary waste of equilibrium, which you did right at the end before the kill after standing. I don't know if Gerwulf has buckawn's, but you were standing with no broken limbs at the end; that's as good a time as any to gamble on trying to web (does web stop damnation? I've never tested).